The students using agentic AI to apply for banking jobs: "I plan to make 500 applications"

Applications for investment banks' 2027 summer internships are open and if you're a student with aspirations to get a place, you had better apply quickly. You may also want to use AI to hasten you along your way.

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Now that Claude, ChatGPT and Gemini can be used to expedite applications, recruiters say they are "drowning" in applications from students who want banking jobs. Lizzie Louis, managing director at Dartmouth Partners, which manages entry-level recruitment processes for some banks and private capital firms, said application volumes have risen "threefold in the past year, particularly for early careers." There is "insane competition for graduate jobs," added Louis. "It feels like a numbers game."

There are numbers and there are numbers. Whereas in the past students were making 100 applications per offer, this year's application-to-offer ratio may be far higher. Internships only opened in the past week or so, but some students have already applied to 50 places. These students are using agentic AI.

Speaking off the record, one London student told us he has automated the entire application process. "I plan to make 500 applications," he said. "I have created an agentic AI that can do everything - sending emails, writing cover letters, filling in application forms."

He is not alone. Although we also spoke to various students at top universities who said they have no idea how to use agentic AI, Louis said she is inundated with "large volumes of very generic low-effort applications."

Mass application tools existed even before Claude and Gemini got good. Sam Leong, CEO of Trackr, which tracks student job openings, says students have long been using Simplify, a site that facilitates multiple job applications. Leong says graduate recruiters can't screen AI applications out: "These are client-side extensions." 

However, the student with plans for 500 applications says you need to switch things up if you want to succeed. "They can tell when you're using AI," he says. "You need to change your agent to make it sound more human."

The student is able to code in Python and used his knowledge and Claude to create AI agents that apply for him and sound as human as possible. When the AI is creating cover letters, he gets an AI detector to read through them and check they appear human. "I read through a lot of academic articles and PhD papers where people talk about how to polish your agent, create cover letters that are personal and include a narrative, and when to send your applications," he says. "It's been working well for me." 

Even so, he says he's frequently ghosted. This doesn't matter when your applications are in the hundreds. Without the agentic AI, other students say they're taking three to four hours per submission.

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